Intrada announces a trio of Hugo Friedhofer scores from the Paramount vaults in this latest edition of the Intrada Special Collection. In Wild Harvest (1947), set against images of combines threshing amber waves of grain, Friedhofer put his “Americana stamp” on the score with a bright major-mode theme, featuring galloping trumpet and woodwind figures set to a Copland-flavored syncopation in the bass line. In the film, Alan Ladd stars as Joe Gibson, the foreman of an itinerant harvesting crew in wheat country. Robert Preston plays his freewheeling buddy Jim, and Dorothy Lamour sexily slinks her way through the film as a scheming farmer’s niece.
For 1953’s Thunder in the East, Friedhofer gave his signature bold harmonies an Oriental flair. The film is set during the taut early days of Indian statehood following the end of British rule in 1947. Alan Ladd stars as Steve Gibbs, a Yank who lands in the tiny mountainous principality of Ghandahar with a plane full of guns and ammunition to sell to the local maharaja. With the Brits under threat of death by invading tribal forces, Gibbs must weigh his options between his mercenary ambitions and his feelings for the blind woman he loves (Deborah Kerr).
In 1950’s No Man of Her Own, Barbara Stanwyck poses as the wife of a dead man in order to start a new life and give her newborn bastard son a name. When she goes to live with the deceased’s family, she falls in love with her “husband’s” brother Bill (John Lund), while her former lover (Lyle Bettger) threatens to expose her secret. Friedhofer’s score is built on a trio of strong themes that provide rhythmic and melodic cells throughout the score to increase the tension as Helen’s situation becomes more tenuous and bleak. Throughout the score, Friedhofer uses vibraphone and harp figures to pull Helen in and out of her indecisive and guilty dreamlike state. For all its mid-century melodramatic trappings, Friedhofer utilizes his customary musical craftsmanship to capture the emotion and drama lurking behind the story’s seemingly implausible situations.
No Man of Her Own and what still exists of Thunder in the East have been mastered from 2˝transfers of mono 35mm mag originals, and Wild Harvest comes from acetates housed at Brigham Young University. As an added bonus and included among the extras is a revised track from Bride of Vengeance that incorporates a “Foreword” which Intrada was unable to include on its earlier release of that score.
TRACKLIST
No Man of Her Own
01. No Man of Her Own Prelude/
London Bridge Is Falling Down (Traditional)
No Man of Her Own Prologue (3:25)
02. The Story Begins/No Answer (1:40)
03. The Train Ticket (1:33)
04. Train Wreck and Hospital (2:23)
05. After the Operation (1:30)
06. The Note (1:34)
07. Memories/The Christening (1:52)
08. The Fountain Pen (0:31)
09. New Year’s Eve (1:52)
10. The Telegram (1:41)
11. The Wedding Ceremony (1:18)
12. Helen’s Plan, Part 1 (1:00)
13. Sorrow and First Scene (3:45)
14. The Letter (1:24)
15. End Title/End Cast (0:47)
Total Time: 26:45
Thunder in the East
16. Prelude and Foreword (2:41)
17. Proposition Ammo (1:53)
18. Steve and Moti Lal/The Walk Home, Part 1 (1:23)
19. Confiscated Cargo (1:30)
20. The Bus Tragedy (1:13)
21. Steve and Joan (3:01)
22. The Visa/The Plane Crash (1:55)
23. Steve’s Payoff (4:56)
Total Time: 18:51
Wild Harvest
24. Wild Harvest Prelude/From Grain to Wheat (2:03)
25. Travel Shot (1:01)
26. Wheat on Fire (5:50)
27. Hygrading (2:52)
28. Caught/The Get Away (6:47)
29. Wild Harvest Finale/Wild Harvest Cast (0:43)
Total Time: 19:26
The Extras
30. Prelude and Foreword (Bride of Vengeance) (2:01)
31. New Year’s Eve (film version) (No Man of Her Own) (1:26)
32. Flight Five (Joseph J. Lilley) (No Man of Her Own) (1:26)
33. Piano IV (The Ruby and the Pearl) (Jay Livingston & Ray Evans) (Thunder in the East) (1:12)
34. Molly Malone (No Man of Her Own) (0:57)
Total Time: 7:13
